


Unwelcome Revelations

by the loupe (theloupe)



Series: 'Never Felt So...' Vignettes [4]
Category: Infinite Undiscovery
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-01
Updated: 2011-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-14 07:31:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/146885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theloupe/pseuds/the%20loupe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"She cannot think of him as her king..."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unwelcome Revelations

She cannot think of him as her king, this fragile and fussy young babe. She tries to think of him as their son, instead. _We made you, he and I_ , she whispers to him as he whimpers in her arms. He is sick and unhappy again, but he refuses to commit to crying. So stubborn. Just like... just like his father.

He grows, and she grows to love him, though she does not understand how.

But each day seems to bring new and worrying realizations. He learns too quickly, he knows too much. He is too wise, too perceptive for a child of his tiny years. One by one, he closes himself off from the people around him, for what seems to them no reason at all. Why should such a child be so detached and mistrustful? What great grudge could such a little lord be nursing? They laugh at his precocity. He never distances himself from her. Somewhere, deep within her and unbidden, she begins to hope.

At fifteen, he is a handsome and determined young man, and his presence is almost more than she can bear. He tells her that he will break the chains, that he will save the world. She tells him that he is but a child, and he should not make such grand claims before he is ready to stand on his own. He glares at her, and does not come to dinner. For all that her heart aches when he is near her, it aches more when he is gone; but she remembers when... when _he_ left her, and she wonders if perhaps to keep him, she must let him go.

She goes to his room, the night before he departs. He sits on his bed, head bowed, shoulders sagging with the weight of the sickness he refuses to let others see and the burdens he insists on carrying on his own. She sits with him and rubs his back, until his eyes close and the worried crease disappears from his brow. In that moment, it is so easy to see him in another time, his face serene and noble and...

Her lips are on the skin of his jaw, and she pulls away, shocked at her own sudden misbehavior. It is not a mother's kiss.

His back is straight – rigid with shock. He stares at her, his eyes wide and his lips slightly parted, the bottom one trembling just a little, as though he may cry. She has never seen him look so young. He is just a child. He is her child! What has she done?

And then his mouth sets itself into a thin, firm line and the last door closes behind his eyes. She flees, embarrassed and disgusted and ashamed.

She digs out the pendant, long buried deep among her jewels, and summons him to her chambers in the morning. She does not know what she will say. It belonged to your – _his_ – wife? It does not matter. She must do something, say something, _anything_ , to make right what she has done.

He accepts it from her with that same serious face, those same dead eyes, and she does not say anything at all. She knows, then, that she will never see him again.

Two years later, the child that is not hers brings news of _his_ death, and at last she understands that he was never hers at all.


End file.
